The Big Lebowski

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed!

As I have done in the past, this post derives from a Bryn Mawr Film Institute class on The Coen Brothers’ The Big Lebowski (1998). It is a funny movie that deals with masculinity and politics in a story that is a variation on film noir and the Western.

  A tumbleweed blows across the screen at the beginning of the movie to the song “Tumblin’ Tumbleweeds.” We then see the city of Los Angeles, and California is as far west as you can go on the continental United States. But, LA is a far cry from what the Old West was. In a way the film is about the passage of time and what vanishes and what endures.

 

The main character is the Dude (a hilarious performance by Jeff Bridges). He is a stoner, a modern-day tumbleweed, just floating along, but surviving with little resistance against the forces around him. The Stranger (Sam Elliot), with a Texas drawl, narrates this story, which adds an anachronistic touch to the tale. A “dude” was originally the term for a “city slicker,” someone who dressed in a fancy manner and was out of his element on a ranch. So, the Dude would not fit in with cowboys. But he certainly doesn’t dress like a fashionable gentleman. He likes wearing pajamas and a bathrobe, and he’d rather be in bed or just hanging around his apartment relaxing, smoking a joint.  

 

His chill life is violently interrupted by a couple of goons from pornographer Jackie Treehorn (Ben Gazzara) who burst into his apartment and start banging things up, demanding that Jeffrey Lebowski (the Dude’s name) pay money that is owed by his wife, Bunny. Here is where the film noir aspect comes in. The Coens said that they wanted a comic variation on writer Raymond Chandler (movie titles like The Big Sleep and The Big Heat influence the title of this film). The Dude tries to explain that they have the wrong man because they think he is rich. These guys are not too bright because just looking at the Dude and where he lives would show he is not wealthy. The Dude demonstrates he is a witty guy even under duress, like a film noir detective. When one of the thugs keeps pushing his head into the toilet asking where is the money, the Dude says, “it’s down there somewhere, let me take another look.” When one of the thugs picks up a bowling ball and asks what it is, the Dude replies, “obviously you’re not a golfer.” When the Dude comes out with these occasional cool lines he mirrors the stylized dialogue of a Noir story. Before the henchmen realize the mistaken identity problem, one pees on the Dude’s Oriental rug. The Dude laments this action because, as is repeated in the story, the rug “really tied the room together.” Despite his foggy life, the Dude still wants to have focus where the strands of what’s happening are “tied … together.”

 During the movie, we get some of the Dude’s backstory. He mentions that when he was in college, he “occupied” buildings. He was a protester against “the establishment,” someone associated with the 1960’s radical group Students for a Democratic Society, known as the SDS. He later wants to be represented by lawyers William Kunstler and Ron Kuby who defended radical leaders during that protest era. His activist ways eventually changed into his current go-with-the-flow lifestyle, possibly because his past ventures didn’t generate the change he hoped for.

 

He discovers who is the Big Lebowski (David Huddleston), visits him, and asks for reimbursement for his rug since he is the innocent victim as a result of the borrowing excess of Bunny, the “trophy wife.” Dude can’t escape how the current political scene is dominated by Republicans. Lebowski’s servile aide, Brandt (Philip Seymour Hoffman), shows pictures of Lebowski’s connection to people like Nancy Reagan. Dude even repeats President George W. Bush’s statement on television that Saddam Hussein’s “aggression will not stand.” The Dude, however, is talking about his rug, and it is ironic that he is quoting a Republican leader. There is a framed mirror on Lebowski’s wall that has the tag of Time Magazine’s Person of the Year, which turns out to be one’s own reflection. Probably Lebowski sees himself that way when he views his own face. Here we see the Dude looking at himself. It is a complicated image. Is the Dude a doppelganger of his rich self? Has he ironically become a member of the Republican collage? We also see a picture of Richard Nixon bowling in the Dude’s apartment. Has he come to identify with his old nemesis because the Dude has taken up bowling? Or, as The Stranger asks, is the Dude “the man for his place and time,” and currently represents the time of the film, the early 1990’s, and deserves to be on the cover of Time?

 Lebowski is elderly and paralyzed in a wheelchair. Does his disabled status reflect the current dysfunctional state of the union? He states that the “bums” like the Dude “lost” the battle to subvert the status quo. But we find out later from his daughter, Maude (Julianne Moore), that her father’s wealth comes from her mother, and Maude manages the money. Lebowski lectures the Dude about how he is a self-made man, but he is the phony who is the “bum.” As one of our class’s instructors noted, Lebowski uses the word “achieve” a great deal. For this rich guy, achievement is measured in wealth, not what one does in life irrespective of accumulated funds. The Dude walks out and steals one of the rugs in the mansion as reimbursement for his loss, exercising his own version of ethics.

 

The Dude finds refuge from the world at the bowling alley with his friends Walter (John Goodman) and Donny (Steve Buscemi). As stated in the class, here is a place where these men can “achieve,” by bowling a good game and possibly winning a tournament. Interestingly, we never see the Dude bowl. Does that mean he can’t escape past failures? The Dude is not laid back when it comes to Walter, who infuriates him with his aggressive actions. The Coens said they saw these two acting like a turbulent married couple. Walter makes everything about his past as a soldier in Vietnam. He is a stickler for rules, which majorly contrasts with the easy-going Dude. It may be that the chaos of America’s failure in the Vietnam War causes Walter to overreact in post-war life as he can searches for order after chaos. For instance, Walter pulls out a gun to threaten a bowler who crosses the foul line but still wants his roll to count. The Dude sides with the bowler and wants to relax the rules. Walter also has converted to Judaism, and wants to comply with its religious dictates.

 

Lebowski hires the Dude to deliver a million dollars in ransom for the supposed kidnapping of wife Bunny. He says he thinks the culprits are the same guys who broke into the Dude's place, so the Dude can confirm they are the culprits. Despite his unfocused mind, the Dude channels the film noir private eye and concludes that there is something not right about what appears to be a crime. He knows Bunny needs money and he believes she is faking her own kidnapping to extract a ransom.

 Walter complicates the money drop by going along for the ride and substitutes his dirty underwear in a suitcase for the money bag. He wants to confront the crooks. The whole episode is like the Keystone Cops, ending with the Dude crashing his car which eventually gets stolen out of the bowling alley parking lot, with the money suitcase in it. Lebowski says he heard from the kidnappers that they didn’t receive the ransom, and Lebowski points the finger at the Dude, who is now in trouble with the kidnappers.

 

However, it is not Treehorn’s men who come to threaten the Dude, but a bunch of “nihilists,” including Karl Hungus (Peter Stomare), a porn star who worked with Bunny in adult films (his work name indicates his attribute for the job). These guys want the ransom money from the Dude. They drop a marmot in the Dude’s bathtub as they threaten to cut off his “Johnson.” One of the film’s main themes centers on threatened masculinity. There is the Bob Dylan song that talks about “the man in me.” After Bunny is kidnapped, Lebowski muses about what is the right thing a man should do. When the Dude has his dream sequence, he sees himself being pursued by these nihilists coming at him with castration-threatening enlarged scissors. A huge bowling ball comes at him, ready to squash him. The story implies the use of the bowing pins and balls as symbols of male genitalia. Walter plays the role of the aggressive male, perhaps to compensate for his impotence in not being able to save his fellow soldiers in Vietnam. The Dude may also be suffering from testosterone failure in his inability to bring about change in society in his past. The loss of masculinity is also referred to by the passing of the cowboy era, including the fact that the fictional writer of the TV series Branded is in an iron lung when the Dude and Walter search for the missing money. Even the cab driver tells a story about a woman “bustin’ … agates.”

 

The ironically named character of Jesus (John Turturro), a fellow bowler, is a demonic figure who invades the sanctuary of achievement of these men whose masculinity is on the line. He has partially sheer socks and a painted baby fingernail, which depicts him as more traditionally effeminate than male (Bunny paints her toenails), which may suggest why he overcompensates with his overly machismo posturing. He licks his bowling ball which could be symbolic of a testicle. Walter tells the Dude that Jesus is a pederast, with a record of exposing himself to an eight-year-old child. There are several references to anal intercourse, including Jesus saying he'll take Walter's gun, stick it up his butt and pull the trigger. Our discussion noted that the Coens deflate Jesus’s character by making him look ridiculous in his exaggerated boasting. (As one of our instructors rightly noted, the comical allusions to homophobia probably wouldn’t make it into a film today as being politically incorrect).

 

Maude takes back the rug that the Dude stole from the Lebowski mansion, which he subsequently was allowed to keep. The Dude is on a search for an object, similar to the hunt for the Maltese Falcon. Maude invites the Dude to her artist’s studio where she tells him that the rug was a gift from her mother, so her father had no right to let the Dude have it. Maude says that those so obsessed just with sex do not love, and she puts Bunny is this category. So, there is a distinction drawn here between proving sexuality and the ability to show true emotion in the form of love. She shows the beginning of a porno film that has Bunny in it with Hungus. The film has Hungus as a cable guy visiting the scantily clad Bunny. The Dude delivers one of his funnier lines when Maude says one can imagine what happens next in the film, and the Dude says, “He fixes the cable?” It is here that Maude mentions her father’s lack of personal funds and that he embezzled a million dollars from a charity for children to get the ransom.

 

Treehorn wants his money. He drugs Dude when he doesn't get the right info from him, which gets the Dude in trouble with cops so Treehorn can toss the Dude’s place to look for the cash. In film noir movies the private eye usually gets knocked out. As one of our instructors noted, the Coens fill the blackouts with dreams. The Dude's dream here is like his carpet because it ties the story together. Many of the images already shown in the movie appear here. For example, there are the bowling pins and balls, and the outfit that Hungus wears in the porno (there are numerous other examples on IMDb). The Dude is more of a swaggering male here, dancing suggestively in a Busby Berkeley inspired erotic musical called Gutterballs. He drifts between the legs of the short-skirted dancers, looking upwards. However, there are then the scissors that undermine this macho wish-fulfillment.

The Dude deduces that Lebowski didn’t care what happened to Bunny, and actually wanted to get rid of her because of her gold-digger ways. So, the suitcase he gave them didn’t contain any money and Lebowski was keeping the cash for himself. The twisty noir aspect of the story continues when Bunny shows up drunk, crashing her car into the Lebowski fountain. (There are several car accidents in the film, suggesting how chaos upends order or calmness). She wasn’t kidnapped and was just on a holiday in Palm Springs which she didn’t tell anybody about. The nihilists just used her absence to try to extort money. The Dude confronts Lebowski, correctly concluding that the old man was setting the Dude up as the patsy for the missing money.

In a comical confrontation with the nihilists, Walter gets to do battle one more time and helps defeat the fake kidnappers. But, sadly the innocent Donny has a heart attack in the middle of the confrontation, and dies. There was a foreshadowing of this event, as IMDb points out, since he always threw strikes until just before his demise. There is a humorous burial as Walter allows Donny’s ashes, carried in a coffee can, to blow all over the Dude when Walter attempts to toss them into the ocean.

At the bowling alley, the Dude meets up with the Stranger, and issues his famous line about how, despite everything, “the Dude abides.” The Stranger, addressing the audience, says, “the whole durned human comedy keeps perpetuatin’ itself down through the generations.” IMDb notes that the word “abides” in the script may come from the Bible’s Ecclesiastes, which reads: “One generation passes away, and another generation comes: but the Earth abides forever.” The Dude had sex with Maude, and the Stranger says that the Dude will become a father. Despite all the craziness in the world, life still goes on.

The next film is The Accidental Tourist.

Miller's Crossing

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

 

Miller’s Crossing (1990) has the Coen Brothers again delving into the darkness of the film noir genre. The world is corrupt, with politicians on the take as gangsters rule. There is the stylized, sharp dialogue, and a femme fatale. But the Coens, as usual, imprint their own slanted, often humorous, style onto the conventions of this type of story. It is a tale that uses hats, heads, and hearts symbolically to address themes surrounding masculinity versus vulnerability, and intelligence versus emotions.

 The film opens with a shot of a fedora hat blowing in the wind in a forest. In literature, the forest is a hidden place where deeds are done that are outside the laws of the civilized world (think of the movie Deliverance). This image will be revisited during the story as it takes on more meaning. There is a shift to the gangster Johnny Casper (Jon Polito) who is in a struggle for control of the city (unnamed, but may be New York during the 1920’s). Casper has an adviser whom he trusts, Eddie “The Dane” (J. E. Freeman). But, as was noted on this blog concerning the film The Grifters, when laws are made to be broken, one becomes suspicious of everybody. Casper is an ironically morally conflicted character, since, although he flaunts the law, he desires that there should be honor among thieves. So, he tends to contemplate questions involving the correct way to behave. He says, “You double-cross once, where’s it all end? An interesting ethical question.” He and The Dane are talking about Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro), a grifter who is selling information about the boxing matches that Casper is rigging so he can collect on the prearranged outcomes. Bernie is cutting into Casper’s profits. The angry Casper says, “It’s gettin’ so a businessman can’t expect no return from a fixed fight. Now, if you can’t trust a fix, what can you trust?” If you must rely on “chance,” Casper says, “you’re back with anarchy, right back in the jungle.” He wants to violate society’s rules so he can gain financially, but contradictorily wants prohibitions on anyone else not following established guidelines, even if they are corrupt standards. 

 

Casper asks the opposing criminal leader, Leo O’Bannon (Albert Finney), to allow him to kill Bernie. This request is troublesome for Leo because he is romantically involved with Bernie’s sister, Verna (Marcia Gay Harden), who is the femme fatale of the story, and most likely has attached herself to Leo to protect her equally scheming brother. Everyone is working an angle in this alternate outlaw realm. Leo refuses the request and after Casper leaves, confers with his confidante, Tom Reagan (Gabriele Byrne), who is the film’s main character. The movie had a working title of “The Bighead,” which was to refer to Tom. He is mostly a thinker and a plotter. Tom is the supreme manipulator among the many schemers in the movie. But his intellect can’t compete with the world of chance (where “anarchy” exists according to Casper) which he keeps trying to beat by gambling. He constantly loses and is in debt to a loan shark. During the course of the film he sustains multiple beatings which shows he can’t always outsmart the “jungle” world Casper is worried about.

 Tom is practical and tells Leo that he should let Casper get rid of Bernie. But Leo, unlike Tom, is ruled by his heart. The next morning Tom wakes up after a night where he lost his hat in a card game. Since hats are worn on the head one of their symbolic meanings in the story refers to brain power. So, when Tom gambles, he loses his money because his mental ability can’t help him beat the odds. His loss of the hat means his intelligence has been defeated. But when it comes to people, Tom is quite adept at planting ideas in the minds of others to sway their behavior. As Adam Nayman points out in his book, The Coen Brothers - This Book Really Ties the Films Together (the subtitle obviously referring to the Dude’s carpet in The Big Lebowski), Tom is described as “the man who walks behind the man and whispers in his ear.” The first shot of him, Nayman points out, has Tom in the background, suggesting he is the “power behind the throne.” 

 

To support Casper’s paranoia about the proliferation of the double-cross, we learn that Tom is having an affair with Verna. One evening, Leo shows up at Tom’s place and confides that he can’t find Verna. He hired a private detective to track her, a man named “Rug” Daniel. He has that name because he wears a hairpiece. There is a later scene where a boy finds the corpse of Daniel and pulls the wig off of the man. (Was he killed by Verna or Bernie?). Nayman says that head coverings are also symbols of masculinity in the film. So, the fact that Daniel didn’t have real hair and he was killed shows he wasn’t manly enough to survive in this unlawful world. The removal of the wig could imply being scalped, which is a sort of symbolic emasculation. Even though Tom is Leo’s close friend, at that moment while he is visiting Tom and is worried about Verna, she is actually in Tom’s bedroom. It shows how Tom’s loyalty is not what it seems on the surface in this universe which lacks “ethics,” and people keep their motives hidden, like under one’s hat. As Tom says at one point, emphasizing the lack of transparency that is prevalent, “Nobody knows anybody. Not that well.”

 

Tom finds Leo in a meeting with the corrupted mayor and chief of police. Leo is escalating the conflict with Casper’s organization by informing the city officials about Casper’s illegal clubs so they can shut them down. Tom warns against increasing hostilities and again advises Leo to turn Bernie over to Casper. The snappy film noir dialogue is present here as Tom tells Leo to think about the cost of protecting Bernie. Leo says, “Oh, come on Tommy. You know I don’t like to think.” Tom’s response is, “Yeah. Well, think about whether you should start.” The exchange also contrasts Tom’s “big head” approach with how Leo follows his feelings. 

 

Casper meets with Tom and suggests he’ll take care of Tom’s gambling debts (he already refused the offer from Leo, showing his independence) so that Tom will work for him. Tom is sarcastic with Casper, who does not like anybody snubbing him, or as he puts it giving him “the high hat.” The use of this term again associates the head covering with masculine hierarchy, and, as Nayman notes, connects to the image of the floating hat in the first scene. Casper has his men beat up Tom, who is saved by the cops raiding the place, courtesy of Leo’s complicity with the police. 

 In retaliation for the raids, Casper sends hitmen to kill Leo at his home. This scene is a terrific action sequence as it shows that the older Leo retains his cool and lethal capability. He is relaxing comfortably in his upstairs bedroom in his pajamas and robe when he notices smoke coming through the floor which is a result of a burning cigarette in the fingers of a dead bodyguard. Leo calmly extinguishes his cigar, puts on his slippers, and then shoots the bedroom invader once in the foot and then in the head, ironically mimicking Casper’s rule to take down the enemy first and then put “one in the brain.” The stress on shooting a bullet in the head again brings up the motif that suggests a symbolic death due to decapitation of one’s manhood. After all, the penis has a “head,” and in the Mafia, “capos” translates to “heads,” which are leaders in that gangster organization. Leo takes the hitman's Thompson machine gun, slides down the roof of the house, and opens fire, killing his assailants. In an over-the-top image Leo shoots a hood in his bedroom, and the man discharges multiple rounds from his automatic weapon as he dies, as if merging the medieval connection of sex and death, as he literally “shoots his load.” Feathers rain down from the blasted pillows, which as Nayman says, joins violence with softness in Leo’s character. After Leo fires at a retreating car driven by one of the thugs, it explodes in flames, accentuating Leo’s success at self-defense, which he celebrates by pulling out his cigar (another phallic symbol) to show his triumphant manliness. 

 After this attack, Tom again presses Leo to give up Bernie because he knows there will be further attempts on Leo’s life. When Tom realizes he can’t convince Leo to change his mind, he puts a plan into action which at this moment isn’t obvious to the audience. He admits that he and Verna are having an affair. The outraged Leo follows Tom out of his office and proceeds to punch him in the face - Tom’s head getting a beating, which again shows Leo’s high testosterone potency. Since he’s breaking ties with Tom, he says it’s “the kiss off.” Even as he is saying goodbye to Tom, the expression suggests a loving relationship that has gone bad. Nayman says that if Miller’s Crossing is a love story, it's between “Tom and Leo.” 

 

Tom meets with Casper again because as we eventually learn Tom’s public break with Leo allows him to convincingly accept Casper’s previous offer to join his side of the fight. This way, Tom can undermine Leo’s enemy. But The Dane doesn’t trust Tom, and we get more of those tough film noir exchanges. When The Dane asks Tom how he got a “fat lip,” which was courtesy of the loan shark’s men, Tom’s response is, “Old war wound. Acts up around morons.” There is more homosexual subtext involving The Dane and Mink (Steve Buscemi), Casper’s bookie, who is double-crossing (no “ethics” again) Casper by giving Bernie information on the fixed fights. Also, Mink may be intimately involved with Bernie. In any event, Casper wants Tom to prove his loyalty by telling him where to find Bernie and then killing him.

 

After acquiring Bernie, Tom rides out with Bernie and two of Casper’s thugs, Frankie (Mike Starr) and Tic-Tac (Al Mancini) to Miller’s Crossing, a forest, divorced from society, that we saw in the initial image of the film, where illegal actions can take place. Frankie tells Tom to take Bernie out into the woods and to carry out Casper’s two-shot assassination rule. As Nayman notes, Tom has his hat on, a sign of masculine power, and Bernie’s head is uncovered, indicating his weakness. Bernie is on his knees pleading for his life, asking Tom to look inside his “heart.” Tom fires two shots, deliberately missing Bernie, and tells him to leave town. He is Verna’s brother after all, and if he is gone, Tom probably figures Verna will stop using Leo. Tom returns to the car and tells Frankie and Tic-Tac that Bernie is dead.

 

Casper tells Tom that Mink is missing and The Dane goes to Verna’s place to find out where Leo is. He shoots two of Leo’s men who show up after finding out Leo’s location from one of them. The Dane tells Verna that she doesn’t have to concern herself with Tom anymore since Tom killed Bernie. So, Verna believes she has been betrayed. The very much alive Bernie sneaks into Tom’s apartment instead of running away as Tom told him to do. Bernie gets satisfaction out of saying he fooled Tom with his tearful plea for mercy. Bernie figures he has leverage over Tom who he wants to kill Casper. Otherwise, Bernie will divulge that Tom let him go, and Casper would then kill Tom for not killing Bernie. We now get how Tom acts in a situation that is similar to what happened to Leo. Tom was smoking a cigar, as did Leo, before someone entered his place. Both men have their homes invaded. As Bernie leaves, Tom slips out his window, as did Leo. But Tom’s attempt to ambush Bernie is unsuccessful as Bernie trips him and kicks him in the face. Nayman notes that Leo wore slippers when defending his home, but Tom is barefoot, implying Tom “can’t fill Leo’s shoes.”

 

The Dane is skeptical that Tom killed Bernie when he finds out that Frankie and Tic-Tac didn’t witness the shooting. He obviously wants Bernie dead for personal reasons given his jealousy concerning Mink. He forces Tom to go back to Miller’s Crossing to make sure there is a body there, because if there isn’t one, The Dane says that Tom’s corpse will do. As they walk into the woods, Tom’s fear gets the better of him. He becomes faint and he vomits. He loses his hat in this scene which goes along with the motif that an uncovered head is a sign of male weakness or impending doom. Tom gets a reprieve because Casper’s men do find a body, but the man was shot in the face. He is dressed like Bernie so The Dane assumes it is Verna’s brother. However, we discover later that Bernie shot Mink and left him there to make it look as if Tom killed Bernie. As Nayman stresses, there are many duplications of scenes in this film. As was noted, there are the home invasions of Leo and Tom. Here we have two scenes set at Miller’s Crossing. There are the Tom-Leo-Verna and The Dane-Bernie-Mink love triangles. The scene where Leo has a meeting with the city’s on-the-take officials is repeated with Casper in control. Nayman says that this repetitiveness points to all the double-crosses that take place in this lawless underworld that exists below the social appearance of legality.

 There is an earlier scene between Tom and Verna that also involves the hat symbolism. Tom says he had a dream that the wind blew his hat away. Perhaps the opening shot was a dramatization of Tom’s dream. Verna tries to psychoanalyze him, saying he probably chased the hat and when he caught it, “it changed into something else, something wonderful.” Tom is dismissive of her interpretation, and says, “It stayed a hat and I didn’t chase it.” He then adds, “Nothing more foolish than a man chasin’ his hat.” In spite of himself, Tom is revealing his own insecurities concerning his manhood by way of the hat symbolism in the film. As Nayman points out, Tom’s Irish accent makes “hat” sound like “heart,” and that sets up a metaphorical “dichotomy” between Tom’s brainy side versus his emotional one. He cares about Leo and he let Bernie live. Verna says to him, “Admit it isn’t all cool calculation with you … that you’ve got a heart - even if it’s small and feeble and you can’t remember the last time you used it.” But she knows how his cold side can take over when she says to him, “I’ve never met anyone who made being a son-of-a-bitch such a point of pride.” 

 Tom uses an ex-boxer, Drop Johnson (Mario Todisco), who Bernie was placing bets with, as a go-between to contact Bernie. When he gets in touch with Bernie he sets up a meeting at Tom’s apartment. At Casper’s house, Tom acts as if the dead Mink, who double-crossed Casper by divulging the fixed fights, is still alive and will be at Tom’s place at the same time Tom told Bernie to show up. The Dane and Mink were very close and Tom exploits that closeness to undermine The Dane. The Dane found out from Drop Johnson that Bernie is still alive and he wants to kill Tom. But, Casper slams him with a fireplace shovel, and repeats his slogan, “Always put one in the brain,” as he shoots The Dane in the head. As Nayman says, Tom figuratively “put one in the brain” of Casper, planting the idea that The Dane helped Mink double-cross Casper. As was said earlier, Tom is the fellow who “walks behind the man and whispers in his ear.”

 

Casper says he will go to Tom’s place and kill Mink himself. Tom walks to his apartment and allows his plan to play out. He knows that there will be a confrontation between Bernie and the surprised Casper who thought he was going after Mink. He hears shots and finds Casper dead on the stairs since Bernie killed him. Tom takes money out of Casper’s wallet and asks Bernie to give him his gun so they can frame The Dane. But, after he has the pistol, he says The Dane is dead, and Bernie will take the blame. Tom points Casper’s gun at Bernie who, yes, duplicates his earlier performance, asking Tom again to “Look in your heart.” But, Tom wanted Bernie gone before to ease tensions between the warring factions and his response this time is, “What heart?” He shoots Bernie and makes it appear as if Casper and Bernie killed each other. Tom also uses Casper’s cash to pay off his gambling debts. 

 At Bernie’s burial, Verna now knows for sure that Tom killed her brother, and she is hostile and drives off leaving the two men to walk back, stressing that the love story is between these two men. Leo acknowledges to Tom what a “smart play” Tom concocted to protect Leo’s interests. Even though he is going to marry Verna, Leo is the one with the “heart,” since he is willing to “forgive'' Tom concerning his affair with Verna. Nayman says the “queer subtext” appears as Leo tells Tom, “I need you.” But Tom says he didn’t ask for forgiveness and he doesn’t want it, and refuses to go back to work for Leo. Leo looks like a scorned lover as he walks off angry. The last shot is a zoom in on Tom as he tugs on the rim of his hat. He has his virility, but his refusal to allow himself to be open to affection, which carries with it being emotionally vulnerable, means he must go it alone.

The next film is A Hard Day’s Night.

Reservoir Dogs

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

 

A major theme in Reservoir Dogs (1992) revolves around trust (and its betrayal), loyalty, selfishness, and whether humane behavior can exist, even among criminals. (The title of the film, suggested by IMDb, may come from someone misunderstanding the title of Louis Malle’s Au Revoir les Enfants. Or, it could be a term for unsolicited scripts).

 Before the credits, there is an extended opening scene where there are several men around a dinner table at a restaurant talking about Madonna’s song, “Like a Virgin.” Many of them wear jackets and ties, as if they are at a business meal. We don’t realize until afterwards that this social gathering conceals the fact that they are part of a planned robbery. Director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino’s first film sets a style that he repeats in his later works by having people in extreme situations carrying on extraneous conversations. He said in an interview that he takes stereotypical genre characters and rounds them out by having them talk like real people about subjects other than the plot. What he adds is a comic flair to the dialogue, and he said, “Outrageous stuff rings the most true,” and dark stuff can be funny.  His writing ranges from the crude to the philosophical. We start out with the former here as Mr. Brown (Tarantino) sees the song as purely sexual while another man, Mr. Blonde (Michael Madsen) says it’s about a woman who has been misused by men in the past. (The use of colors to keep identities anonymous in a criminal act was employed earlier in The Taking of Pelham, 1,2,3.) Joe Cabot (Lawrence Tierney), the person organizing the heist, says he prefers Madonna’s earlier work. Through this process, Tarantino creates distinct characters by what they say and do.

 

The camera rotates around the table to show all the participants and keeps the angle at chair level, making the audience feel as if they are part of the gang. Mr. White (Harvey Keitel) is annoyed by Joe’s droning on about an old address book and grabs it away from him. Joe is quickly portrayed as the elderly, stubborn guy who wants things to go his way. As he later says, it’s “my way or the highway.” Joe shows he’s ticked off by telling Mr. Blonde to shoot White. Blonde jokingly makes his hand look like a gun and pretends to shoot White. White shows his tough comic sense when he says, “You shoot me in a dream, you better wake up and apologize.” Blonde’s sensitive take on the Madonna song and his humor here hides the evil that we see in the man later in the story. His blonde name denotes something attractive, but here its use is ironic. “Nice Guy” Eddie (Chris Penn), who is Joe's son and is not nice at all, talks about hearing golden oldies on a radio program, K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the ’70’s. (Tarantino is already thinking about making his Kill Bill movies which he hints at with the program name. In fact, Blonde’s real name is Vic Vega, and Tarantino was going to make a prequel to this film and Pulp Fiction, about the Vega brothers with Madsen and John Travolta. Tarantino thinks like a novelist who writes sprawling sagas). 

 Joe says he’ll pick up the tab but the rest should leave the tip, which is only a dollar each. Mr. Pink (Steve Buscemi) says he doesn’t believe in tips because he shouldn’t be forced by society to automatically leave extra money unless extra effort is shown. Joe makes him throw in the tip because he paid for the meal, showing his need for control over the actions of others. Pink’s stinginess points to his selfish actions later and his aversion to cooperate with rules in general. Eddie criticizes Pink’s attitude by using a Jewish racial stereotype. (Tarantino has been attacked for using the “n” word often as well as other racial slurs, and his inclusion of prolific profanity. Indeed, if one is sensitive to this usage, Tarantino is not the filmmaker for you. Those who defend his content argue that it is a realistic depiction of the characters in the stories). White doesn’t go along with the good-natured teasing of Pink, and he is seriously critical of Pink’s lack of empathy for the poorly paid waitresses. Could he be named White because out of this bunch of criminals he has a code of ethics he wants to cling to? It is interesting that Mr. Orange (Tim Roth) has his arm resting on White’s chair, and attentively listens to what the man says. This fact points to the closeness of the relationship the two later share, and the hidden truth that threatens their bond. 

 Tarantino’s narratives are not linear. His jumbled timelines are infuriating for some, but he relies on the audience’s mental ability to figure out what is happening. Also, the out-of-sequence form of storytelling generates interest as one must actively participate in fitting the pieces of the tale together. So, right after the credits we have Orange in the back of a car writhing in agony after being shot. There is blood smeared on the seat while a supportive White tries to offer hope. He holds Orange’s hand, which literally and figuratively shows the connection between the two. Even though the scene is emotionally fraught, White is still able to be funny as he tells the pessimistic Orange that he didn’t know the wounded man had a medical degree, so how does he know he is going to die? 

 They go back to the “rendezvous point,” which is an abandoned warehouse. White holds Orange like a nurturing parent and assures him that Joe will get the man a doctor. Orange wants to be held and despite the macho posturing the men displayed earlier, White is compassionate enough to show some tenderness and complies with the request. White even whispers something that makes the bleeding Orange laugh. White takes a comb and runs it through Orange’s hair, which is both sweet and ridiculous given the bloody circumstances. Despite caring about Orange he says he can’t drop the man at the hospital. Orange pleads to be left outside of the medical facility and swears that he will not divulge any information. Loyalty and trust are at issue here, but the irony is that Orange is really an undercover cop. So, he is lying and will probably betray the man who is showing concern for him. White wants to avoid the authorities getting involved and assures Orange that being shot in the gut is very painful but it takes a long time to die from that type of wound. 

Pink shows up and believes they were set up since the police secretly appeared in force to upset their plans. (The robbery isn’t shown since the emphasis is on the characters, not the plot to steal from a jeweler). White says the police killed Brown. White and Pink go into the adjoining bathroom and try to recreate what happened. But just like Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, there are differing accounts of the same crime based on subjective impressions and motivations. When Pink asks if he killed anybody, White says just cops, whom Pink classifies as “no real people.” Pink’s callousness comes through here as he sees the police as allowable targets since they are paid to stop men like him, and he dehumanizes them to justify them as targets. White says the police showed up when the alarm was tripped. Pink says the cops didn’t let their presence be known until Blonde started shooting. We have here evidence of Blonde’s lethal capacity. White asks, perhaps suspiciously, how Pink was able to escape. The idea of mistrust was planted and starts to grow. Pink says he blasted his way out, and there is a short recreation of Pink running at full speed near people on a sidewalk with the bag of diamonds in his hand and cops chasing him. He shoots some of the officers as he drags a woman out of her car and uses the vehicle to escape. This successful carjacking contrasts with the disastrous one that is dramatized later. Tarantino does not have long action sequences here. He instead expends time on interactions between characters. 

 

Both men agree that Blonde acted like a maniac, shooting everywhere, not just for protection. (IMDb notes that there is a small yellow sink next to White, which suggests Blonde is still alive, but it may just indicate that he is the subject of their discussion). White is upset, showing his emotional side, when he notes that Blonde killed a young black girl, supposedly an innocent bystander. He goes on to call Blonde a psychopath, which is unexpected considering how easygoing Blonde was at the restaurant. The two men make the distinction between the indiscriminate way Blonde acted and the need for necessary professional violence. They feel that criminal actions must be proportional, which seems a rationalization since once entering a potentially dangerous situation there is the strong possibility for lethal outcomes. White now washes up and combs his own hair, implying that he is trying to pull himself together as he did with Orange. They wonder what happened to Blonde and Mr. Blue (Eddie Bunker), and White is thinking about what happened to the diamonds, which again displays suspicion about his comrades. But Pink is honest here and reveals that he has the diamonds. However, he suggests that he and White take the diamonds since the deal about sharing is “null and void” once there is a “rat” involved as they can’t trust anyone now. Even though he was once betrayed by an undercover cop in a robbery, White sticks to the idea that there should be honor among thieves and rejects Pink’s cynical feelings about everybody. When Pink considers that Orange is the informant, it is ironic that the uninformed White comes to the bleeding man’s defense. Pink says about being a snitch, “I can say I definitely didn’t do it because I know what I did or didn’t do. But I cannot definitely say that about anybody else ‘cause I don’t definitely know.” Loyalty and the trust on which it is based, along with a sense of certainty, melt away once the threat to the individual is present, and then one retreats to the fortress of the self.

 There is a brief flashback entitled “Mr. White,” where Joe informs White of the details of the robbery which is high risk because it is during the day when there are many people around. White knew someone who could fence the stolen gems, but he is now serving twenty years because of “bad luck.” The assumption is that no matter how well planned a heist is, something can go wrong. When it comes to illegal actions individuals are fighting against the rules of society, which is a formidable obstacle. 

 

Back at the warehouse, White confirms that the unconscious Orange is still alive. White says that Joe could get Orange to a doctor, but the dubious Pink isn’t sure they can trust Joe since he hasn’t shown up yet. That feeling of betrayal is now a constant presence. White admits that Orange was shot because of him, and he is feeling guilty. He tells Pink that the wounded man begged to go to a hospital. Pink is ready to go along with dropping Orange off for medical attention until he learns that White revealed his first name (Larry) and where he is from to Orange. That human connection interferes with antisocial unlawful activity. Because White has a criminal record, Pink says that the cops could narrow down what suspects to show Orange, who could identify him. Pink’s attitude is survival is the number one priority which leaves little room for helping another. He echoes White’s statement earlier which is that some people are “lucky” and some aren’t, which relinquishes the individual from responsibility as to outcomes. White is not willing to accept that attitude now because he feels responsible for the wounded man, and reacts by attacking Pink for the same callousness he himself showed earlier. In effect, he has projected the anger he feels for himself onto Pink. The two pull guns on each other and Pink is logical in his self-preservation argument, as opposed to White’s emotional response, as he tells White once Orange compromises White, then that is one step closer to Pink being caught.

Blonde appears during this confrontation, and he is as cold as the ice in his drink that he had the composure to buy during this episode that would rattle the average human. He echoes Joe’s assessment of the juvenile way that the other two men are acting when he says, “You kids shouldn’t play so rough. Somebody’s gonna start cryin.’” Pink and White have the smell of a rat lodged in their nostrils and demand to know what happened to Blonde and Blue. Blonde’s response to their suggestion about getting out of the possibly compromised warehouse is to order that nobody is leaving. He talked to Eddie who said to stay put and he was coming to the rendezvous point. Blonde is dedicated to Joe and Eddie, so even a psychopath can show allegiance. Blonde’s scary calm contrasts with White’s ranting about Blonde’s bloodbath at the jewelry store. Blonde is quietly menacing when he says to White, “Are you going to bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite.” Pink stops them from fighting and says he absolutely knows that Blonde is not an undercover guy for the police because he’s too “homicidal to be workin’ with the cops.” When on the other side of the law, extreme violence strangely reassures loyalty. Blonde laughs and says that his heart was beating fast as if he enjoyed getting excited about a confrontation with White, and attributes their behavior to being fans of actor Lee Marvin. Is Tarantino revealing the influence of another actor’s roles on his movie, or maybe he is also stressing that these are actors pretending to be violent as did other performers before them. 

 

Blonde has a surprise for Pink and White in the trunk of his car which turns out to be a police officer named Nash (Kirk Baltz) who he grabbed to shield his escape. We get a shot outward from inside the storage area of the vehicle which puts us in the position of being a captive in the director's movie, just like the cop Blonde has captured. The men laugh at the “not real” person that has been caught like a hunted animal. They seem to relish in defeating the representative of law and order. Blonde says that they can interrogate the policeman to get information about the “rat.”

 The next flashback is labeled “Mr. Blonde.” Joe is in his office and there are elephant tusks on either side of his desk. The image suggests primal masculinity that promotes dominance through force over other living creatures. On the phone he makes a reference to J. P. Morgan about overcoming adversity, which associates survival of the fittest in the animal world with what happens in big business. He is told that Vic Vega has arrived, who we do not see at first, and when Joe tells his associate to have Vic come in, the employee looks over his shoulder and says to the camera, “Come on in.” It is Tarantino inviting the audience into this world he has created, and identifies us as possible criminals, a Hitchcockian technique. Vic has just been released from prison and is very grateful for the packages Joe sent him while inside. Joe is grateful that Vic took the conviction connected to a previous job and never implicated Joe. This fact shows Vic’s loyalty to the criminal boss. Vic’s parole officer is tough on him and Joe makes a racist comment about how African American ex-convicts are treated better, an argument impossible to make outside of his office. Eddie shows up and Vic teases him about how his father said the son was ruining the business. The two wrestle like little boys and Joe, the stern father, makes them stop, after which Eddie makes homophobic remarks. We have overcompensating testosterone on display. Eddie tells Vic that they can get him a job as a dock worker where he will just be on the payroll, make money, and not have to work, and that way get his parole officer off his back. Again, Vic is grateful to the Cabots and can’t wait to do some jobs that aren’t on the up and up. Eddie convinces his dad to add Vic to the list of men to rob the jewelry store. Illegitimate business can seem attractive because of how it removes problems most have to deal with every day and score large amounts of money, but there can be a price to pay, as we are seeing, when those “jobs” go sideways. 

 The anger and frustration of a robbery that became deadly erupts as Pink and White beat up the captured cop back at the warehouse. Blonde secures him to a chair with duct tape. The scene is intercut with Eddie channeling the exasperation with the chaos that the robbers have precipitated as he says on the car phone that he doesn’t know who is dead, who is arrested, and where the diamonds are. Eddie is echoing Pink’s lack of certainty about anything, which reminds us of what happens to those best laid plans. When Eddie arrives at the warehouse everyone shouts out grievances and accusations. Again, the only calm one is Blonde, who says he shot the jewelry store staff for tripping the alarm. While Eddie wants the diamonds, White wants to make sure Orange is taken care of, which shows the different priorities of the two men. 

 Eddie decides that he, Pink and White must get rid of the stolen cars in the lot and travel to where Pink stashed the stolen goods. Eddie leaves Blonde to babysit the cop. Bad idea. Blonde’s sadism surfaces in what follows, which is not for the squeamish. He admits that he isn’t interested in information, but instead thinks it’s “amusing” for him “to torture a cop,” and will not give him the mercy of a quick death. He plays the song “Stuck in the Middle,” and dances to it, contrasting light entertainment with torture, thus accentuating the atrocities in which he is engaged. He cuts off Nash’s right ear with a straight razor as the camera pans to the message over an archway which reads, “Watch your head,” which is funny but definitely sick. The song’s lyrics talk basically about being caught between a rock and a hard place, which is where these characters exist given their actions. Actor Madsen, who was reluctant to do this grisly scene, improvised talking into the severed ear, a bit of very dark humor. (Blonde’s mixture of song and dance with violence may remind one of Malcolm McDowell’s scene in A Clockwork Orange where he commits an act of “ultraviolence” while performing “Singin’ in the Rain”). 

 

Blonde’s depraved sense of humor is also seen as he first pretends to act like he will use the razor to shave himself instead of using the instrument on the man, and also when he tells the bound and gagged cop to not go anywhere as he goes to his car for some gasoline. The camera follows him. There is no music and children are heard as Tarantino shows us how just outside the chamber of horrors, peaceful, everyday life goes on, unaware of the hidden atrocities that are taking place right under society’s collective noses. Blonde throws gasoline onto the groaning, suffering policeman. He pours a stream of gasoline that he is ready to light that will travel to the cop and ignite the man. But Orange wakes up and empties a clip of bullets into Blonde, killing him. Nash knows that Orange, whose real name is Freddy, is a cop (which is when the audience first discovers that Orange is undercover) because they met several months prior. Yet, the brutalized policeman courageously did not divulge Orange’s identity, which reminds us of Blonde not informing on Joe. Loyalty is thus shown on both sides of the law. Orange says that the cops are close by waiting for Joe to show up so they can arrest the big shot crook. Nash is incensed that he is sitting there beaten and mutilated while waiting for the arrival of the police. Nash must be wondering at this point whether his trust was misplaced. Orange yells back at him, saying the two have to sit it out. Perhaps the police are also being portrayed as cruel here for not coming sooner to help their comrades.

The next flashback segment is entitled “Mr. Orange.” The scene is a diner where Orange meets with his police handler, Holdaway (Randy Brooks), and tells him that he had a meeting with Joe and a Mr. White, who likes the Milwaukee Brewers. So, they assume White is from Wisconsin and Holdaway can narrow in on armed robbers who come from Wisconsin so that Orange might be able to identify who White is. Orange says something complimentary about a source named Long Beach Mike, but Holdaway tells Orange to not admire a “scumbag” who sells out his comrades. It is revealing here that Orange has positive feelings for a criminal, which shows he can exist in areas of gray where the lines between the legal and the illegal blur. Also, Holdaway is using Long Beach Mike for information but at the same time has contempt for his cooperation. Yet, he wants Orange to establish trust and then betray it. Many contradictions are revealed here in just a few words of dialogue. 

 On the roof of the building, where they can have privacy, Holdaway wants Orange to memorize “the commode story,” which is a fake “amusing anecdote about a drug dealer” that Orange will pretend actually happened to him. It is a quirky and exact tale that will ingratiate Orange into the company of the other criminals who will buy into Orange’s phony criminal past. Tarantino, through Holdaway, tells us about acting and writing here. Holdaway says an undercover cop has to be “Marlon Brando” to be convincing. He says the covert policeman must be “naturalistic,” which means conveying reality to the extreme. That also means that the writing must be detailed, so a screenplay written for such a story must provide that type of exactness. So, as Holdaway says, the person telling the story must know what the bathroom smells like, what type of soap is there, if a stall has a missing door, if there is a blower or paper towels, etc. He says, “it’s the details that sell the story,” which must be personalized. So, Tarantino gives us the actor, Tim Roth, learning his lines for his role as a cop who is preparing to act as another character he is playing, Mr. Orange. 

 

We then shift to Orange telling the story to White, Eddie, and Joe at a club. We then have the dramatization of Orange’s tale, a scene within a scene, both imaginary, since, after all, we are watching a piece of fiction. The drug-carrying Orange goes into a public bathroom where there are four cops with a German Shepherd, who barks at Orange, implying he is a felon. One of the cops is telling a story. That part mirrors what Orange, the crook, is doing, linking a type of behavior between the law enforcer and the law breaker, showing that underneath they have similar traits. The cop’s story could be a fake, too, which of course it is, because it is part of the staged scene. Orange says that despite the precariousness of the situation, he has the courage to make the air dryer drown out the policeman’s story, thus metaphorically, giving the finger to the cops. That bit of defiant coolness under pressure wins over his audience. We have here a specific rendition of how art must imitate life to be believed, and thus, be meaningful for the audience. 

 Before riding with White, Eddie and Pink, Orange looks at himself in his apartment mirror attempting to convince himself that he is that cool crook which will prevent him from getting hurt. We know that no matter how much preparation there is, one can’t control all the possibilities of how things can go wrong. The men talk about 1970’s Pam Grier movies (she later stars in Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. This type of dialogue about pop culture becomes a signature of what crooks discuss in the director’s films, reflecting Tarantino’s interests, and also developing the characters). We again have racist, crude comical stories and comments from Pink, Eddie and White, which are offensive but believable given the white criminals depicted. 

 The laughter of the men contrasts with the next scene which is another flashback of the stern, Joe reprimanding his crew for their adolescent behavior. He has a blackboard drawing of the crime plan and the scene reminds one of an older teacher trying to control and instruct his students. He assigns them their colorful names, and Pink complains like a disagreeable child about his designated shade. Joe insists that the only topic his gang can discuss, so that nobody can inform on another, is each person’s part of the job. Afterwards, White and Orange do just that, as Orange recites all of the steps of the burglary. He listens to White giving him pointers on how to deal with any resistance from customers or workers, and there is a smile on Orange’s face as he appreciates White’s experience. Orange must be deceitful by lying about who he is, but his dishonesty is in the service of the law. However, he is made to participate in a robbery, so he becomes part of a criminal act. Because he is “caught in the middle,” as the song says, he later finds it difficult to betray the trust he has established with Mr. White. 

 

There is a jump forward where Brown, who was shot, crashes the car he is driving with Orange and White onboard, and dies soon after. Orange helplessly, and in shock, watches as White, the man who has become his mentor, brutally shoots two policemen in a cop car as they approach the crooks. Orange can’t stop him because his job is to get Joe. When Orange and White try to carjack a vehicle, the female driver pulls a gun out of her glove compartment and shoots Orange, who then shoots the innocent woman in self-defense. His make-believe role as a felon now becomes horrifyingly real as he has turned into a killer, which again shows the crossover between the worlds of those that abide by the law and those who break it. 

 

We now return to the aftermath of the crime taking place at the warehouse. Eddie, White and Pink return to find Blonde dead. Orange says Blonde was going to burn the cop. Eddie then executes Nash, who could have identified them, wiping out Orange’s attempt to save the officer, and any drop of humanity in the situation. Orange says that Blonde was going to kill him, too, and then steal the diamonds. Eddie Doesn't buy it since Blonde took the blame for a robbery and spent four years in jail without implicating Joe, which shows Eddie valuing the loyalty of a sadist, a sad state of affairs. White doesn't trust Eddie and Joe for hiring Blonde, the “psychopath.” Joe shows up, tells them Blue is dead, and says he wasn’t “100%” sure of Orange, saying the bleeding man is the one who set them up. He is right, of course, but White defends Orange. There is a great deal of misplaced trust here. Joe threatens to shoot Orange, and White, Eddie and Joe pull out their guns. Joe shoots Orange, White shoots and kills Joe and Eddie, after Eddie shoots White while Pink hides. He then grabs the diamonds and runs off. (Tarantino says that in the background Pink is shot by the police, but lives and is apprehended). As White cradles Orange, presenting us with a mobster version of the Pieta, Orange decides to make a last confession and admits that he is a cop. White is in anguish at being so deceived and points his gun at Orange. The police show up, and White finishes Orange off before being riddled with bullets as the screen goes black.

 The film implies that wrongful actions beget more of the same, as the violent dominoes fall and crush everyone in their path, and loyalty may not be possible where people’s lives are ruled by deception and self-interest. 

 The next film is The Slender Thread.